CHINESE PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES.

New Zealand Tablet, 11 March 1920, Page 29

CHINESE PILGRIMAGE TO LOURDES.

There recently arrived in the City of the Apparitions the first Chinese pilgrimage (says the Universe, London). Fourteen Catholics from the north of the Celestial Empire, attached to the British Army near Dunkirk and Calais, before returning to their distant Fatherland, formed the wish of going to Lourdes. This they proposed to their chaplain, Father Van Dyk, who, in the face' of almost incredible difficulties, organised the party. The little pilgrimage was not only one of the most striking, but also one of the most edifying’that have been seen. Every day at 4.30 a.m. the Chinamen started their prayers; they merely said they had not come to Lourdes to lie in bed. At all times of the day one saw them, two by two, going down to the Grotto and reciting, or, rather, chanting in their own way, the Rosary or the Litany of Our Lady, and then going to offer a candle to burn at the foot of the statue. They made the Way of the Cross in the same way. As doubtless many people do not know, the Chinese do not say, but sing, their prayers, and this psalmody is of an undulating and monotonous nature which is not unlike certain chants of the Arabs or the sound of bagpipes. During the second part of the Mass they also chanted their prayers aloud, and they all went to Communion, and then in procession with Father Van Dyk, as ho carried the Ciborium back to the Rosary Church. Before finishing their pilgrimage they insisted on paying their homage to the Bishop of Lourdes, and as he was unfortunately away they sent him a telegram, to which he returned a most cordial reply.